Quotes and anectdotes from the wise to the foolish, and the courageous to the drunk

work

Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. I you look at it to admire it, you are lost.

Work alone is noble.

Work as though you would live forever, and live as though you would die today. Go another mile!

Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.

We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.

You reach a point where you don't work for money.

A man can believe a considerable deal of rubbish, and yet go about his daily work in a rational and cheerful manner.

A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune's inequality exhibits under this sun.

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.

Blessed is he who has found his work let him ask no other blessedness.

Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.

Disneyland is a work of love. We didn't go into Disneyland just with the idea of making money.

Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.

Every noble work is at first impossible.

Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.

God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.

I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

I don't like to work with assistants. I'm already one too many the camera alone would be enough.

I don't need the money, dear. I work for art.

I learned the value of hard work by working hard.

I love my work with a frenetic and perverse love, as an ascetic loves the hair shirt which scratches his belly.

I never called my work an 'art'. It's part of show business, the business of building entertainment.

Instead of asking 'How much damage will the work in question bring about?' why not ask 'How much good? How much joy?'

It is our best work that God wants, not the dregs of our exhaustion. I think he must prefer quality to quantity.

Of all the things I've done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me and aiming their efforts at a certain goal.

Oh, give us the man who sings at his work.

Old age is not a matter for sorrow. It is matter for thanks if we have left our work done behind us.

Reform is not pleasant, but grievous no person can reform themselves without suffering and hard work, how much less a nation.

The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful one must sense him everywhere but never see him.

The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.

The only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done.

The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.

The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.

The worst sin that can be committed against the artist is to take him at his word, to see in his work a fulfillment instead of an horizon.

There are one hundred men seeking security to one able man who is willing to risk his fortune.

There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.

A race is a work of art that people can look at and be affected in as many ways they're capable of understanding.

A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

All things are difficult before they are easy.

All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.

America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.

Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.

Create your own method. Don't depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you.

I am trying to show the world that we are all human beings and that color is not important. What is important is the quality of our work.

I never expect to see a perfect work from an imperfect man.

I wanted to be a doctor that I might be able to work without having to talk because for years I had been giving myself out in words.

I wasn't born a fool. It took work to get this way.

I'm going to work so that it's a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it.

If I went to work in a factory the first thing I'd do is join a union.

If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.

It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.

It is possible to demonstrate God's existence, although not a priori, yet a posteriori from some work of His more surely known to us.

It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.

It seems as if an age of genius must be succeeded by an age of endeavour riot and extravagance by cleanliness and hard work.

My nervous system is enfeebled, only work in oils can sustain me.

Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.

O man you are busy working for the world, and the world is busy trying to turn you out.

Poetry is the work of poets, not of peoples or communities artistic creation can never be anything but the production of an individual mind.

Pray thee, spare, thyself at times: for it becomes a wise man sometimes to relax the high pressure of his attention to work.

Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.

The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands.

The least of the work of learning is done in the classroom.

The man of genius is he and he alone who finds such joy in his art that he will work at it come hell or high water.

The outward work will never be puny if the inward work is great.

The quality of your work, in the long run, is the deciding factor on how much your services are valued by the world.

The test of the artist does not lie in the will with which he goes to work, but in the excellence of the work he produces.

The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die.

The work of art assumes the existence of the perfect spectator, and is indifferent to the fact that no such person exists.

You only live once - but if you work it right, once is enough.

To live well is to work well, to show a good activity.

To work hard, to live hard, to die hard, and then go to hell after all would be too damn hard.

We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.

Work as if you were to live a hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow.

You have not found your place until all your faculties are roused, and your whole nature consents and approves of the work you are doing.

Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.

Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first.

Whether for life or death, do your own work well.

When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.

What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel work of nature!

All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness.

All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.

An audience is always warming but it must never be necessary to your work.

Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.

Create like a god, command like a king, work like a slave.

Every job is good if you do your best and work hard. A man who works hard stinks only to the ones that have nothing to do but smell.

Every person born into this world their work is born with them.

For every two minutes of glamour, there are eight hours of hard work.

For his heart was in his work, and the heart giveth grace unto every art.

God gives talent. Work transforms talent into genius.

I don't want to die as long as I can work the minute I can not, I want to go.

I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

I never did a day's work in my life. It was all fun.

I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident they came by work.

I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.

In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.

It is astonishing what an effort it seems to be for many people to put their brains definitely and systematically to work.

It's said in Hollywood that you should always forgive your enemies - because you never know when you'll have to work with them.

Join the union, girls, and together say Equal Pay for Equal Work.

Men cannot not live by exchanging articles, but producing them. They live by work not trade.

Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions.

No one can arrive from being talented alone, work transforms talent into genius.

Nothing is work unless you'd rather be doing something else.

Oh, if I could but live another century and see the fruition of all the work for women! There is so much yet to be done.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.

Some slaves are scoured to their work by whips, others by their restlessness and ambition.

The contemporary form of true greatness lies in a civilization founded on the spirituality of work.

The first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work.

The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work.

The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense.

The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions.

There is no substitute for hard work.

A bachelor is a man who comes to work each morning from a different direction.

All of us are guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.

By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus.

Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do the work.

Fear God and work hard.

I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.

I think the person who takes a job in order to live - that is to say, for the money - has turned himself into a slave.

If you put all your strength and faith and vigor into a job and try to do the best you can, the money will come.

Let me be a free man - free to travel, free to stop, free to work.

One must work and dare if one really wants to live.

Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations.

The brain is a wonderful organ it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.

The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.

The world is full of willing people some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.

The worst disease which can afflict executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism it's egotism.

To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.

When work is a pleasure, life is a joy! When work is a duty, life is slavery.

What the world really needs is more love and less paper work.

We're all of us guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.

Work hard, stay positive, and get up early. It's the best part of the day.

This has always been a motto of mine: Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.

A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles.

A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.

A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual.

Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.

Begin - to begin is half the work, let half still remain again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.

Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself.

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.

I went back to work because someone had to pay for the groceries.

I work to stay alive.

Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.

Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.

Our work is the presentation of our capabilities.

People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because they excel.

Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day.

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.

The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.

The only reason anyone goes to Broadway is because they can't get work in the movies.

The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.

A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.

A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.

After all, it is hard to master both life and work equally well. So if you are bound to fake one of them, it had better be life.

An honest man's the noblest work of God.

As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey.

Change yourself and your work will seem different.

Four things for success: work and pray, think and believe.

I like work it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.

In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.

In scientific work, those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact.

It is not real work unless you would rather be doing something else.

It's plain hokum. If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em. It's an old political trick. But this time it won't work.

Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.

Love and work... work and love, that's all there is.

Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live.

Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.

Realize what you really want. It stops you from chasing butterflies and puts you to work digging gold.

The artist belongs to his work, not the work to the artist.

The greatest humiliation in life, is to work hard on something from which you expect great appreciation, and then fail to get it.

The pay is good and I can walk to work.

The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.

There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment the time is always now.

We believe that if men have the talent to invent new machines that put men out of work, they have the talent to put those men back to work.

When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.

You musn't force sex to do the work of love or love to do the work of sex.

We work to become, not to acquire.

To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth.

A man is educated and turned out to work. But a woman is educated and turned out to grass.

As I understand it, sport is hard work for which you do not get paid.

Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed - there's so little competition.

Education is the power to think clearly, the power to act well in the worlds work, and the power to appreciate life.

Football is like life - it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority.

Happiness is ideal, it is the work of the imagination.

Have thy tools ready. God will find thee work.

I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.

I myself would like to become more disciplined within my work.

Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.

It's not the work which kills people, it's the worry. It's not the revolution that destroys machinery it's the friction.

My share of the work may be limited, but the fact that it is work makes it precious.

My work is a game, a very serious game.

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society.

Simplicity and repose are the qualities that measure the true value of any work of art.

The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.

The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.

The highest reward that God gives us for good work is the ability to do better work.

The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.

All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.

By the work one knows the workman.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail.

Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

Good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake.

If you have a success you have it for the wrong reasons. If you become popular it is always because of the worst aspects of your work.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Like every man of sense and good feeling, I abominate work.

Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.

People intoxicate themselves with work so they won't see how they really are.

The effectiveness of work increases according to geometric progression if there are no interruptions.

The greatest weariness comes from work not done.

There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.

Work isn't to make money you work to justify life.

Writing is hard work and bad for the health.

Work is not man's punishment. It is his reward and his strength and his pleasure.

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching.

When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results.

When large numbers of men are unable to find work, unemployment results.

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.

When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: 'Whose?'

When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment results.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.

To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.

There is no time for cut-and-dried monotony. There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time!

An idea isn't worth much until a man is found who has the energy and ability to make it work.

Concentrate on your job and you will forget your other troubles.

Establishing lasting peace is the work of education all politics can do is keep us out of war.

Gentleness doesn't get work done unless you happen to be a hen laying eggs.

I am a real ham. I love an audience. I work better with an audience. I am dead, in fact, without one.

I fear my enthusiasm flags when real work is demanded of me.

If you don't want to work you have to work to earn enough money so that you won't have to work.

Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.

One and one is two, and two and two is four, and five will get you ten if you know how to work it.

The harder I work, the luckier I get.

The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.

Anyone who can walk to the welfare office can walk to work.

Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise.

Every work of art is an uncommitted crime.

I look back on my life like a good day's work, it was done and I am satisfied with it.

I'm working myself to death.

If you want peace work for justice.

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

Let us realize that: the privilege to work is a gift, the power to work is a blessing, the love of work is success!

Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a movable body.

The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.

Work while you work, play while you play - this is a basic rule of repressive self-discipline.

Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.

You're blessed if you have the strength to work.

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

Work is a necessity for man. Man invented the alarm clock.

When you play, play hard when you work, don't play at all.

To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.

A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction.

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.

Actors work and slave and it is the color of your hair that can determine your fate in the end.

All anyone asks for is a chance to work with pride.

An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.

Anyone's life truly lived consists of work, sunshine, exercise, soap, plenty of fresh air, and a happy contented spirit.

Everyone enjoys doing the kind of work for which he is best suited.

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

Have convictions. Be friendly. Stick to your beliefs as they stick to theirs. Work as hard as they do.

He who seeks rest finds boredom. He who seeks work finds rest.

I am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man.

It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.

It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.

It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.

My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.

The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.

The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

A work of art is above all an adventure of the mind.

Authority doesn't work without prestige, or prestige without distance.

Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love, to work, to play, and to look up at the stars.

Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence they go stark, raving mad.

It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.

Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.

Liberty doesn't work as well in practice as it does in speeches.

Life is too short to work so hard.

Man - a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.

Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.

No theory is good unless it permits, not rest, but the greatest work. No theory is good except on condition that one use it to go on beyond.

Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment.

Success represents the 1% of your work which results from the 99% that is called failure.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

There is no prejudice that the work of art does not finally overcome.

Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts inevitably bring about right results.

Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

Work and struggle and never accept an evil that you can change.

Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.

Will it, and set to work briskly.

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive but it is lightning that does the work.